House - fortified house

The National Monuments Service's description

Gormanston Castle the manor house of the Preston family stands on a designed landscape immediately E of the Delvin River which forms the boundary with County Dublin.  Manor chapel (ME028-019----) of Gormanston Castle stands 15m to the NE.  A watermill (ME028-107----) stands 450m to the W.  Gormanston Bridge (ME034-007----/DU001-010----) stands on the demesne lands of the castle 715m to the SE.   The 1654-56 Civil Survey of County Meath described a possible fortified manor house as a ‘stone house’ which in 1640 belonged to Nicholas Preston (Simington 1940, 10).  In 1640 the lands of Gormanston were in the possession of the Irish Papist, ‘Nicholas Lord Gormestown’ and on the lands of Gormanston there stood; ‘a stone house with outhouses about twenty ffarme houses in the towne two watter Mills and some Timber trees in hedge Rowes’ (ibid.). This ‘stone house’ is depicted on the 1655-59 Down Survey map of Stamullen parish (NLI, MS 715/10).  On this map the building surrounded by trees is depicted as a two storey high house with attic windows in one gable and a chimneystack rising above the roofline from the other gable. In 1669 the forfeited lands of Jenico Preston, lord Viscount Gormanston, included the ‘castle, manor, town, and lands of Gormanstowne, with a mill — Carranstowne, Richardstowne, Boltray with a mill, and Logdoory with a mill (ME028-109----)’ (Anon. 1825, 208).  Gormanstown house and designed landscape depicted on Rocque's 1760 map of County Dublin.  On this map the house is depicted as a H-plan house standing on the side of a watercourse/mill race of a watermill with formal gardens to the S.   

The present Gormanston Castle was built in the late 18th - early 19th-century on the site of the medieval manor house.  The castle is now a college and was described by the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage as a; ‘Detached nine-bay three-storey over basement, former castle, commenced c.1363, rebuilt, remodelled and extended c.1820. Now in use as school. Comprising of four-storey central breakfront with castellated towers, having flanking three-storey bays, terminated by four-stage towers. Pitched slate roofs with stepped parapets set on corbelled courses. Rubble stone walls with some ashlar limestone dressings. Four-centred arch door opening and window opening with ashlar dressings and label mouldings to central bay. Timber sash windows to main block, with pointed arched timber sash windows to towers, having ashlar limestone dressings and hood and label mouldings. Architectural design and detail are immediately apparent in the form and construction of this imposing former house. Originally dating to the fourteenth century, this building is now entirely nineteenth century in appearance. It is thought that Thomas Wogan Brown and Sir Richard Morrison were both involved in the design of the building at different times’ (NIAH Reg. No. 14322995).

 

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien

References

Rocque, J. 1762 An Actual Survey of the County of Dublin, on the same Scale, as those of Middlesex, Oxford, Berks and Buckinghamshire. Available at https://virtualtreasury.ie/item/LBC-Rocque-3 [Accessed 05 September 2025]

NLI, MS 715/10 - National Library of Ireland, The Parrishes of Stamullen Moorechurch and Balligart (1655-59) by Richard Waller An Exact copy by Daniel O'Brien, Surveyor, 1786. Dublin.

Simington, R.C. (ed.) 1940 The Civil Survey, AD 1654-1656. Vol. V: County of Meath. Dublin. Irish Manuscripts Commission.

Anon. 1825 Abstracts of Grants of Lands under the Acts of Settlement and Explanation, A.D.1666-1684. Appendix to Fifteenth Annual Report from the Commissioners of Public Records of Ireland. Dublin.